


sorry cole

by Anonymous



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rape Aftermath, Rape/Non-con Elements, Torture, does the plot make sense? no, everyone’s probably ooc idk, i beat up the character i relate to/project on because i feel bad about myself, i wrote this in the notes app of my phone, vent fic i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 21:26:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18213836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/





	sorry cole

a guard’s rough hand tightens around cole’s wrist, pulling him to a stop with enough force he thinks it might break. _no_ , he thinks, twisting desperately, but without his powers he can’t tear himself free. another guard grabs his other arm, and after a few seconds of fruitless fighting, he sags in their grip. 

“cole!”

“keep going!” cole shouts, seeing zane stop running and turn around. “either you get out or neither of us does!”

“but—“

“ _go!_ ”

zane runs. 

quiet footsteps come from behind cole, and clouse walks into view. cole glares daggers at him. he seems unfazed, only giving a small, smug smile. 

“you three,” he says to the pack of guards, “keep going. you two, follow me.”

three guards run past cole and clouse, down the passage after zane. the two still holding cole turn around and begin dragging him back towards the prison, clouse walking along in front. 

“it was almost a clever attempt, earth ninja,” clouse says casually as they walk. “clearly, it’s too dangerous to keep you around the other prisoners. chen would be very disappointed to lose any more product.”

cole laughs, remembering the food-based warfare he inflicted on the guards. “worth it.”

clouse smiles smugly back at him. “we’ll see.”

-

the cell they take him to is more spacious than the one he’d been kept in before, entirely solid instead of barred and lit only by a tiny window high above. the guards throw him to the ground, and he springs to his feet, ready to fight, only to see tendrils of clouse’s dark magic curling around him. tendrils wrap around each of his wrists and solidify into heavy chains. 

“i do hope you enjoy your new accommodations,” clouse tells him, smirking. 

cole glares. “‘s great.”

“quite. now, dirt ninja.” clouse’s smirk grows. “on your knees.”

“wh—“ cole sputters. “no! i don’t have to listen to you!”

clouse steps forward. cole tries to raise his fists to fight, but he can’t lift them more than a few inches before the chains hit their ends. his eyes widen and ice races through his veins as clouse runs a hand down his cheek. 

“do you think your robot escaped?” his fingertips burn into cole’s skin. he wants to move away— he can’t— he has to— “there’s no chance of it. and your other friends, well. the tournament protects them. for now.”

cole can’t breathe. 

“now, you have two options, i think,” murmurs clouse. “you can comply. or you can make it difficult, i will force you to obey, and your friends will suffer.”

air rushes into his lungs as clouse steps away. cole gasps, choking on it. “i—“

“on your knees.”

he can’t. he won’t. he has to— but his legs are paralyzed— but clouse has his friends— but he could be lying—

another tendril smacks into the back of his knees and he falls forward, knees and hands slamming into the packed dirt floor. clouse waves a hand, and suddenly the chains at cole’s wrists force his arms towards opposite sides of the cell, jerking his body upward. unable to stop himself, cole cries out. 

“unfortunately, i can’t stay long,” clouse says from above him. cole raises his head, attempting to burn clouse with the anger in his gaze. clouse just laughs. “don’t go anywhere, boy.”

and he sweeps out of the cell, locking the heavy door behind him and leaving cole to his thoughts and fears. 

-

clouse doesn’t return for some time, but cole’s cell is visited periodically by groups of guards who seem to have a lot of anger to take out on him. they all run together after a point, but he recognizes a few as ones he’d knocked around during his first daring escape. most of them use their fists, though some bring knives and spears. one brings a whip. the others cheer and laugh as he draws back his arm and lashes the whip across cole’s open back, again and again and again, searing lines of blazing agony through his every nerve. 

eight lashes in, tears begin to dribble down cole’s cheeks. he manages a full twenty lashes before he screams, and doesn’t fall unconscious until the forty-third. 

he is brought back to consciousness by the splash of water against his bloodied back. it’s fresh water, not salt— they’d spared him that much— but it still stings as it pours over his welts and wounds. despite himself, he lets out a quiet whimper, which turns into a wail as he feels a finger dipping _into_ one of the open wounds, pulling at the puckered edges. 

“i see the guards had some fun while i was away,” comes clouse’s voice right next to his ear. cole jumps, then winces as the movement intensifies the pain across his aching body. 

with a sickening squelching sound, clouse’s finger slides out of cole’s back. he moves around to stand in front of cole, crouching down to be level with his head, and extends a bloody finger. “open,” he commands. 

cole presses his lips together, shaking his head. 

clouse frowns at him. with no warning, his other hand swings out and strikes cole in the side, over a solid mass of bruise. cole gasps in pain, and, quickly, clouse slips the bloodied finger into cole’s mouth. cole retches and tries to back away, but clouse is already withdrawing his finger, leaving a bloody smear across cole’s lips. he smiles. 

cole spits blood in his face. 

slowly, clouse stands up. his smile never fades— rather, it grows. he rests a hand on cole’s head, runs his fingers through his hair. “i warned you, dirt ninja,” he says softly, the tone and actions in direct contrast to his words.

he turns and leaves. 

-

every time cole thinks he might be drifting off to sleep that night, his chains jerk or rattle, or a draft blows across his back and sends another wave of pain through him. by morning, his eyes are blurred, his body is sore all over, his arms ache from holding his weight, his back is in agony, and his mind is somewhere else entirely. 

clouse arrives several hours (minutes? days?) after the sun rises, hands behind his back and a familiar smirk on his face. “sleep well?” he asks patronizingly. 

cole only glares. 

“i brought you a gift,” clouse continues, and holds something out towards him. 

cole strains to see it, forces his eyes to focus, but the object is too shiny and throws light into his vision—

no. 

“a reward for your defiance,” clouse says. 

five robotic fingers rest in his left hand, the hand itself in his right. wires trail from the ragged ends, and black liquid drips out. clouse walks up to cole and sets the pieces of zane’s hand down before him. 

he wants to look away. 

he can’t. 

“i didn’t get to test, before, if this one could feel pain,” clouse says. “the other one, the girl, couldn’t. as it turns out, this one can.”

bile rises in cole’s throat. “no,” he whispers. his voice breaks on the word.

“i did warn you,” clouse murmurs. 

cole throws up. 

hot tears stream down his face and he sags forward, only held up by the chains keeping his arms taut. all he can see is the hand, the wires and oil— _did zane scream when clouse tore it off_ — his stomach is empty but he keeps dry heaving— _would it be kai next, or jay, or lloyd_ — clouse is saying something but he can’t hear— _my fault, all my fault_ —

a sharp pain blooms across his face. clouse has slapped him. he hiccups and coughs, tasting bitterness and acid. 

“this is where defiance leads,” clouse whispers to him. he shoves cole’s head down to look at the oil and vomit on the ground. “look at you. disgusting. you really are _filthy,_ boy.”

cole shudders. 

“i think,” continues clouse, “that you owe me an apology.”

he tries, but no words leave his mouth. “i—“ he coughs. 

“if you apologize, there will be no need for further... unpleasantness.” clouse gestures towards the hand. 

“i’m sorry,” cole gasps. “i’m s-sorry, i’m sorry, i’m—“

“sir,” interrupts clouse. “i’m sorry, _sir._ ”

there is nothing left in his stomach to expel, but something twists anyway. 

“i’m sorry, sir,” he chokes out, hating himself, hating clouse, hating himself more. 

he doesn’t attempt to fight clouse after that. 

-

every day brings something new. clouse only visits for a few hours, give or take, but he makes the time count. sometimes he joins the guards who still come every so often, watches them beat cole black and blue. sometimes he is alone, tracing patterns into cole’s skin with fine-edged knives or holding his neck almost until he passes out. sometimes he wants to make cole suffer a different way, mixing pleasure with the pain until cole doesn’t know anything but him. other times he simply takes and takes and takes. 

the magic makes for interesting situations. on one day, he stops by the cell for five minutes, just long enough to summon thousands of grasping hands from every wall, reaching for cole, touching, pinching, caressing, forcing, fondling, not stopping even after clouse is long gone. cole screams and thrashes in his chains as creeping fingers roam all over his body, push into him, leave marks on his skin, until finally he flees into his own consciousness and waits, sobbing, for it to end. 

another time, clouse creates a roaring fire, heating an iron brand before cole’s terrified eyes and then pressing it into the planes of his chest and the soles of his feet, burning his flesh as he wails. “it smells delicious, does it not?” clouse taunts him. the brand comes out perfectly, a pristine ouroboros forever seared into his skin. 

sometimes he brings his pet, the giant violet snake. she wraps herself around cole and squeezes until he feels his body break, lowers her head to lick the tears from his cheeks with her forked tongue, then drives a fang deep into his shoulder. it burns with venom and her mouth comes away wet with blood. cole thinks she might be laughing as she slithers out, but he’s in too much agony to know. 

sometimes clouse just uses the tendrils, letting them writhe through cole’s body, cut off his air, make him whine in what he doesn’t want to admit is pleasure. he makes games of it— how far, how many, how soon he can reduce cole to begging. it comes sooner and sooner every time, shifts from _please stop_ to _please let me finish_ in the span of minutes (hours, seconds). clouse’s words, too, shift, from _that’s it, boy_ to _filthy, disgusting, ruined, nobody will ever want you again_ and back, so many times cole gets whiplash. 

why isn’t he fighting? it’s not to protect his friends, not anymore; the memory of zane’s hand is lost amidst his muddled thoughts, resurfacing only in nightmares. it’s not because he doesn’t want to fight back, or even because he wants to spare himself further pain through cooperation. 

why isn’t he fighting? 

it’s because he’s broken, and he’s disgusting, and he deserves this. 

on the good days, cole is aware enough to know how disgusting he’s become, aware enough to despise himself for it. on the bad days, he shuts down entirely, lets his body take the abuse while he desperately tries to recall the sound of jay’s shrieks when he loses a game or the particular pink of zane’s apron. he can feel the memories slipping away as time passes. ( _he doesn’t deserve to hide_ , something whispers, and more and more he begins to agree.) 

and then, every time, the pain reaches a new peak, and he’s dragged back into the agony, or he dissociates entirely, lets clouse flog an empty shell. 

other days, clouse never comes at all. those days— when cole is left alone to his fears and thoughts and whispers of “that’s it, boy” racing through his mind and the ghosts of his friends screaming in his ears— 

those days are the worst. 

-

he is alone. 

he’s been alone for a long time, too long, as time ceases to mean anything and he loses his hold on himself and he

can’t remember their

_voices_

and their names become his mantra though his own voice is too ragged from unending screaming to say them aloud

and the chains around his wrists fall away, dissipating into dust, and he falls forward, unable to catch himself on arms too stiff to move. 

the ground is still damp with a variety of his bodily fluids, but he can’t care. ( _you’re disgusting, dirt boy—_ ) he moans and curls into a ball, making himself small even as he knows it won’t matter. he hurts. he hurts. 

time passes. 

he’s crawled into a corner, some piece of his mind rebelling against the idea of lying in a puddle of himself, when the door opens. 

his mind is instantly flooded with panic. he shouldn’t have moved— clouse would be angry— he’d hurt him again, no, no, no—

“cole?”

—that’s not clouse. 

it’s familiar, the new voice. one of the guards? he cringes back, pulling his body even tighter into himself. he can’t see.

“clouse said he’d be here, didn’t he?”

“i’m pretty sure,” someone else responds from outside the cell. more than one, not good, no, please—

the one in the cell makes an angry sound, causing him to flinch. “if that bastard lied—“

“let me look,” says a third voice, and someone else steps into the cell, casting a blue light across it. involuntarily, he whimpers. 

they gasp. 

“cole?”

and— that’s him, isn’t it? he’s cole. he’s cole, and they’re not clouse, and he’s not sure what that means but he lifts his head slowly and uncurls just the tiniest bit and the third person gasps again and rushes over and cole flinches backwards and the person stops short before extending a hand out towards him, slowly, tentatively.

“is he—“ the first person begins, stops, then says, “let me just— holy _shit._ ”

they’ve lit their hand on fire, and suddenly the cell is bright and cole flinches even further back, and there’s footsteps and two more people are in the cell and cole can’t look but he opens his eyes just a crack and sees them, lloyd and kai and jay and zane, and the tears well up in his eyes like they’ve done so many times recently but there’s no clouse to lick them up this time so he lets them fall, spilling out of his body like so much else. 

zane’s hand is still extended towards him, whole and unbroken, and he takes it, and then he’s falling forward into zane’s arms and sobbing. the other three approach hesitantly, and zane holds him, and he sobs and sobs and sobs. 

-

zane feels guilty even as he turns to run, not looking back at cole in the grasp of the two guards. he knows, logically, that it’s better for one of them to escape than neither of them. he knows. it does not help. 

_it was the right decision,_ pixal says, and he knows that she’s trying to reassure herself just as much as she is him. he doesn’t respond, just keeps running. 

he thinks he might be lost, but pixal seems to know where to go— twisting right, ducking left, he runs and runs and doesn’t stop. 

_here!_ pixal exclaims, and he stops in front of, apparently, nothing. he scans the wall before him for weak points and instead detects a complex mechanism connected to the floor above him. he pushes on a stone that juts out from the wall, and it slides smoothly inward, triggering a hidden door to open and reveal— stairs! 

he scrambles up the steps and emerges into a large room decorated in swaths of gaudy crimson and gold. sunlight lands on his metallic face and he laughs out loud, relishing in the feeling. 

“zane?”

the voice comes from behind him, and he whips around to see his friends. kai, who had spoken, looks astonished; jay and lloyd wear matching expressions of shock. that shock slowly melts into delight, and the three rocket to their feet and rush towards zane, all talking at once. 

“zane, you’re here!”

“when’d you get so shiny?”

“—missed you—“

“are you doing okay?”

“—thought you were dead, but then chen—“

“how’d you escape?”

zane clears his throat, not that he needs to, and they fall silent as he explains how he survived, rebuilt himself, and was found by chen. 

“...and then cole found me, and helped me escape,” he concludes. 

“wait,” says jay. “you’ve got a girl in your head? wait, can she hear me?” he stands on his toes to peer directly into zane’s eyes. “pixal, are you in there? hello, hello?”

_hello, jay,_ says pixal dryly. zane relays the message. 

lloyd’s brows furrow. “you said cole helped you get out. where is he?”

zane looks down, examining the grooves in the hardwood floor. “the guards got him as we were running. he told me to keep going, and i did.”

there’s silence for a bit, before lloyd speaks up again. “that’s alright,” he says decisively. “it’s good that one of you escaped, rather than—“

“neither, yes,” zane interrupts. he immediately feels bad for it, but he just. doesn’t want to hear that justification any more. 

“yeah, and besides,” adds kai, “he’s on the inside, with the other prisoners. he can get allies down there, work to pull off a massive breakout and take down chen.”

he’s right. zane knows that. he knows. he knows. 

he just wishes he could believe it. 

-

they did it. chen and clouse are defeated, the prisoners are free, everyone has their powers back. zane smiles. in victory, the world looks so much brighter. 

“metal man!” booms karlof from across the room. 

“metal man,” zane greets him, smiling wryly. 

karlof stomps over and looms over him, arms crossed. “it was good fight!” he announces. “now, where is cole? karlof did not see him in the battle, and he owes karlof!”

zane frowns. “what do you mean?”

“karlof told him, do not forget us, and he goes to get you and escapes and we do not see him again!”

there’s ice forming in zane’s stomach, and it has nothing to do with his powers. “he didn’t escape,” he says. “they caught him. you’re saying they didn’t take him back to you?”

karlof shakes his head silently.

zane says nothing. he turns and walks away, towards chen and clouse, steps slow and deliberate. 

he hopes that his gaze is cold enough for them to feel it. “where is he?” he asks softly, dangerously. 

clouse wheezes out a laugh, and zane whips his head around to pin him with a glare. “where is he?” he repeats, louder this time. 

clouse keeps laughing. he doesn’t stop as zane reaches for his throat, digs into his skin with frostbite at his fingertips, lifts him into the air. 

he tells zane where to go, laughing all the while. 

-

zane lifts cole into his arms, carries him out of the cell and down the long passage to freedom. he’s too light, too _small_ — he’s lost entirely too much weight. cole curls into him, trembling. flecks of dried blood and he doesn’t know what else rub off on zane’s arms and chest. he hisses when he accidentally jostles cole and causes him to let out a soft, broken cry of pain. 

“i’m sorry,” he whispers, and he doesn’t just mean for that. 

the others are holding a quiet conversation. zane catches bits of it— “someone should go on ahead,” “is there a doctor on this island?” “skylor would know,” “ask my dad.” in the end, lloyd peels off from the group and runs down the tunnel. 

cole whines, and zane absently begins to murmur soft reassurances, not entirely sure what he’s saying but knowing he has to keep going before cole breaks apart. 

_just ahead,_ says pixal. it’s the first time she’s spoken since they found him. 

garmadon, skylor, and nya stand beside lloyd at the mouth of the passageway when they emerge. nya’s eyes widen and skylor gasps in horror, but garmadon doesn’t react beyond a small tightening of his facial muscles. he reaches out to take cole, but cole clings tighter to zane, and garmadon just nods and gestures for them to follow. 

some of the other elemental masters gather around to see what’s happening. lloyd steps up to head off the onlookers, quietly explaining the situation and keeping them from getting too close. zane meets karlof’s eyes; the metal man looks solemn. guilty, perhaps. zane knows the feeling all too well. 

“chen only had a small infirmary,” garmadon says as they walk. “i suppose he didn’t think he’d need a doctor. there are supplies there, but nobody here has medical training. cole will need to go to a hospital.”

cole makes a quiet sound and shakes his head minutely. 

“i’m sorry, cole, but it’s necessary if you want to get better. you don’t want it to hurt any more, do you?”

at that, cole’s eyes go wide and his breath quickens. he rasps out words, over and over, and zane has to tilt his head to hear. 

“no, no, i’m sorry, s-sir, i’m sorry...”

nindroids don’t need to eat, and it shouldn’t be possible for zane to throw up, but there’s bile in his throat nonetheless. 

for a moment, garmadon looks stricken, before his expression hardens again. “no need for that,” he says. “you’re safe now, cole. nobody here is going to hurt you.”

there are tear tracks on cole’s face, worn pathways through the blood and dirt. a droplet lands on his cheek outside of the paths, joined by another, then another. it takes zane a moment to realize they’re his. 

“you’re going to be alright,” he promises, hating the way his voice box glitches around the words. 

-

cole passes out halfway to the infirmary. zane doesn’t notice immediately, only realizing when cole’s grip on him loosens. for a moment, he’s terrified cole has died; he doesn’t relax until he finds cole’s pulse, sluggish but still there. 

once there, he sets cole gently down on the single bed, then stands there for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts, unable to look away from his friend’s ravaged body. how long had it been since their attempt at escape? how long did clouse have him? what did he _do to him—_

“go, zane,” says garmadon, not unkindly. “it’s doing no good for either of you for you to stand here worrying. i’ll make sure he’s stable until we can move him to a hospital.”

zane doesn’t want to go, no matter how true he knows garmadon’s words to be. he reaches out to brush cole’s hair away from his face, thinks better of it. turns. leaves. 

kai, jay, lloyd, nya, and skylor are waiting outside the infirmary when he exits. kai is pacing. lloyd is speaking softly to jay, who is crying. skylor seems on edge as well, lingering at the outskirts of the group as if unsure of her welcome. nya looks tempted to reach out to her, but remains frozen in place. 

when zane steps out, five pairs of eyes snap to him. “is he...” begins kai. 

“sensei garmadon is with him,” zane says. “he’s unconscious, for now.”

“can we see him?”

zane shakes his head. “i was just kicked out. i think it’s...”

_best we leave._

he doesn’t say it. the words stop in his throat, almost choking him, because the last time he left— the last time he left—

jay sniffles. “he’ll be alright, right?”

silence. 

“if he is not,” says zane quietly into the stillness, “i will go to clouse and make him wish for death. but i will not grant him that mercy until he has suffered the way he made cole suffer.”

kai meets his eyes and gives a determined nod. “sounds like a plan,” he says. “we’ll be right there with you.”

-

zane thinks skylor feels guilty, given how much she’d been insisting on doing for the ninja and nya. it would have been easy to blame her, he supposes— for being chen’s daughter, for not stepping in and stopping clouse when she might have been able to, for facilitating the tournament in the first place— but it’s easier still to blame himself, so he stays quiet and lets skylor help where she can. 

jay, too, has been almost inconsolable. from what zane has been able to gather, cole sacrificed his spot in the tournament for jay, and now jay thinks that it’s his fault for accepting the win. kai, lloyd, and nya have all taken turns letting jay cry on them, but zane can’t bring himself to talk to him, because he knows whose fault it is and it’s not jay’s. 

_he’s not the one who ran. he didn’t leave cole in the hands of clouse and his minions. he didn’t_ abandon _him._

that shame is zane’s alone. 

it’s not until two nights into their unofficial vigil outside the infirmary when it comes to a head. jay is crying again, and nya is rubbing his back, and zane feels it grow and grow in his chest until he can’t hold it back any longer and he snaps, “stop it, jay.”

jay makes a choked sort of hiccup and stares at him. zane doesn’t let himself feel ashamed. 

“what the hell, zane?” nya asks. 

zane ignores her. “this isn’t about you,” he says to jay. “for once. stop crying.”

_zane,_ pixal warns him, and he ignores her as well. she was _there_. she should understand. 

jay is still staring. he’s not getting angry— _why won’t anyone be angry at him_ — but instead seems to be internalizing zane’s words and feeling worse about himself, which is the opposite of what he should be doing. 

on the other hand, nya and kai seem to be picking up the slack. “what the _hell,_ zane?” nya repeats.

“jay has no reason to be crying over this.”

“he’s obviously blaming himself, man, what the hell?” kai puts in, and zane wants to scream because he _knows_ that. 

“there is no reason for him to blame himself,” he says tersely. “it wasn’t about him until he made it—“

“and what, it’s about _you_?” spits nya. 

“i _left_ him!” zane yells. he freezes, surprised at his own outburst, and forces himself to calm down. “i left him. they had him and i just ran. i didn’t even _try_ to save him.” the last words are quiet, small. 

nya glares. “you can’t just—“

“ _enough_ ,” lloyd says loudly. he pushes himself off the wall he’s been leaning on and stares at zane and the others. “this isn’t helping anything.”

zane still refuses to let himself feel guilty for starting the argument, though it’s there, just more on the pile of the guilt he’s already carrying. 

“jay,” says lloyd, “this isn’t on you. cole made his decision in the tournament. it’s not your fault that he chose to lose.”

jay looks down miserably. 

“and zane.” lloyd’s gaze burns into him. “there was nothing you could do. you made the best choice you could have made at the time.”

“how can you say that?” zane snaps, but lloyd isn’t fazed. “if i’d stayed to help—“

“then they’d have both of you, and who knows what might have happened then. but it _didn’t_ happen.” lloyd takes a deep breath. “there’s no changing the past. if you have to blame someone, blame clouse or chen. they’re the ones who made the choice to hurt cole. but blaming ourselves gets us nowhere. right now, all we can do is make sure we’re there for him when he wakes up.”

-

there’s no pain. 

it’s almost like floating when cole comes to awareness, feeling better than he has in... he doesn’t want to know how long. his body is still bruised and cut inside and out, but it’s like there’s a wall between his mind and the pain, keeping it away from him. he cracks open his eyes. 

it’s dark in the room, but he can make out garmadon sitting in an uncomfortable-looking chair nearby, reading a book by a dim light. he looks up as cole stirs, and relief crosses his face. “cole, you’re awake!”

cole tries to say something, but his vocal cords won’t function properly, producing only a rasping feeling. it would probably cause pain under normal circumstances, but cole isn’t going to complain. he coughs a few times. 

garmadon looks him over. cole feels strangely exposed— he’s been bandaged and given a thin robe, which is better than anything he had in the cell, but in the moment he’s certain that garmadon can see through that to the dirty, broken _thing_ that cole has become. 

“don’t try to talk right now,” garmadon says as he does his examination. “your throat is still damaged. unfortunately, there aren’t adequate supplies on the island to really help you heal, so you’ve been put in a sort of stasis until we can get you better help. we’re waiting for my brother to pick us up, as there are medical supplies on the _bounty_ and i thought it best you have treatment during transportation. is neuro’s pain blocker working?”

cole nods, looks around the area. it’s empty aside from himself and garmadon, and he feels the panic rise within him. “wh—“ his voice snaps, but he presses on. “where are my friends?”

garmadon smiles. “they’re waiting outside,” he tells him. “they haven’t left. they’ve set up camp out there. the other elemental masters stop by fairly often to check on you as well.”

“i— can i— need to see them,” cole forces out. he tries to push himself up, though his limbs are hesitant to obey, and garmadon rushes over to support him. “sure would be good to— to have f-four arms now, huh,” rasps cole. garmadon chuckles and helps him to the door. 

the hallway outside the infirmary is filled with sleeping bags, most of which are occupied. jay is snoring lightly, and the familiar sound almost brings tears to his eyes. lloyd looks like he’s fallen asleep against his will, judging by his seated position against the wall and the book in his lap. kai and nya are in separate bags but are cuddled up to one another, hand in hand, and zane—

glowing blue eyes snap open almost as soon as cole takes in the scene, and then zane is on his feet, not moving or even breathing as he stares at cole. 

cole waves slightly. “h-hey.”

and then zane has crossed the hall and is wrapping his arms around cole, tightly enough that it might have hurt if not for neuro’s blocker. out of the corner of cole’s vision he sees garmadon step away, and he sags into zane’s arms, and someone is shaking and cole isn’t sure which of them it is, and zane clings to him and he brings his arms up to cling back and the tears start coming again and he doesn’t try to stop them. 

zane’s crying too, cole realizes. he hadn’t known if he still could. 

( _“i didn’t get to test, before, if this one could feel pain—“_ )

but both of zane’s hands are attached, one resting on cole’s back and the other carding through his hair. 

too soon, zane pushes him back, and he gives an involuntary noise at the loss of contact. zane looks him up and down, presumably cataloguing his various wounds ( _all the ways he’s_ broken, something in his mind whispers, _the ways he’s disgusting and filthy and ruined_ ).

cole grasps at zane’s left hand, the one clouse tore off ( _because he tried to resist, it was his fault_ —). “h-how—“ his voice sounds awful, and zane almost flinches. “how did you— get away?”

this time, zane does flinch. “i’m sorry,” he says, not meeting cole’s eyes. “i’m so sorry i left you behind.”

“no, not— the second time,” cole says, shaking his head. “they— c-clouse said— he showed me—“ 

( _oil dripping from the torn wires, mingling with the vomit on the ground_ —)

zane shakes his head slowly. “they never recaptured me, cole.”

“but he—“ cole’s breathing comes faster and faster, and he squeezes zane’s hand so tight he’d be afraid of cutting off his circulation were zane not a nindroid. his head spins. “he said— when i— when i resisted— he showed me—“

zane holds onto him, and his mind latches onto the contact, cool metal on his skin. cole takes a deep, shuddering breath. “he said he had you,” he whispers. “he said the t-tournament was keeping him from the others, but he— if i resisted, he’d hurt you. he tore your hand off. he brought it to me. s-said it was— a gift for my defiance.”

he’s pulled back into the hug, this time even tighter. he can hear every click and whirr of zane’s mechanisms, can feel him shaking, can hear his barely audible murmur, “ _i’m so sorry, cole, i’m so sorry..._ ”

-

like on the way to the infirmary, cole falls asleep in zane’s arms, resting his head against zane’s chest as his eyes slip shut and his breathing evens out. he’s loath to let go, but he passes cole off to garmadon, who had stepped away to give them space but came back when he saw cole fall asleep, and watches as he carries cole back into the infirmary and closes the door. 

for the first time in four nights, zane sinks to the ground and lets himself relax. 

“you feeling any better?” someone whispers, and he looks up to see lloyd watching him. 

“how long have you been awake?” asks zane, in lieu of an answer. 

lloyd shrugs. “i woke up sometime around when you started talking. i didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but, well...”

zane nods slowly. he understands. 

“so...” lloyd begins hesitantly. “i guess it’s a good thing, right? that you left. if he’d actually had you...”

it’s true, and zane knows it, but. “i wasn’t even there, and he still used me to hurt him.”

“he would have done it either way, though,” lloyd says. “either he had you, or he made an illusion or a fake hand or whatever he did. it’s better that he wasn’t using the real you, you know?”

zane sighs, watching the infirmary door. “i know.”

lloyd exhales a small, tired laugh. “it doesn’t help to know, does it?”

zane shakes his head. 

“yeah,” says lloyd softly. “that’s the fun thing about guilt. it doesn’t listen.”

-

cole wakes screaming. he forces his muscles to work, pushes himself to the edge of the bed, dry-heaves over the floor. his throat is torn again from the force of the scream. he collapses back onto the bed, curling up as the tears come again. 

_no matter how much he begs, clouse doesn’t stop— it just encourages him— he laughs, flicks his wrist, drives a tendril into cole’s pleading mouth as the ones already inside him wriggle and he writhes—_

he’s _angry_. angry that he’ll never be able to forget, to move past this, not if it replays highlights in his mind every time he sleeps. angry that he’s so weak. angry that he can’t stop _crying_. angry that he can’t even feel any of the pain. 

angry that they rescued him, that they took him out and now he has to live with these memories and this broken body and their pity and their care that he doesn’t deserve. 

angry that he has to move forward. 

cole screams again, this time out of frustration. 

the door to the infirmary flies open and there’s kai, fists aflame and glaring around the room. “stay away from him!” he shouts. 

the ouroboros on cole’s chest and the black marks on his feet may be covered by bandages but he knows they’re there, and he flinches away from the fire even though he knows kai won’t hurt him.

kai’s gaze snaps over to the movement. he sees cole and extinguishes his hands, though he doesn’t stop looking around the room. “what happened, cole?”

cole coughs. “y-you mean in general?”

“you screamed just now.”

“oh.” cole huffs out a broken laugh. “just nightmares. n-no need to worry.”

kai sighs. he throws himself into the chair— cole belatedly realizes garmadon isn’t occupying it, isn’t even in the room— and pulls at his hair. “ _bounty_ can’t get here soon enough,” he grumbles. 

and then they’ll leave, and cole will have to face recovery, daunting and terrifying, and he doesn’t want to return to clouse’s hands but he’s going to spend every night back in them in his dreams and he just wants it to _stop_. 

minutes pass. garmadon returns, exchanges words with kai that cole doesn’t listen to. as much as cole fights it, he slides inexorably back to sleep. 

-

in the dead of night on the seventh night after cole’s rescue, the three of them go. lloyd and nya stay behind, the former cautionary, the latter encouraging.

they know the way to the prisons; the route is burned into their memories. skylor is there when they arrive, guarding the cells. with a nod, she lets them in. 

kai lights his hands up, revealing clouse, chained to the wall. he’s awake, and though his magic is suppressed and he’s been imprisoned for a week, he looks up and smirks at the ninja as they enter. “come to visit? it’s taken longer than i thought.”

the flame in kai’s hands burns brighter as he glares. zane’s hand comes down on his shoulder, and kai grits his teeth but doesn’t attack. 

“so quick to anger, red ninja,” clouse says. “and to think, you’re the furthest removed from the whole... situation. unlike your two friends here.”

he hears jay exhale sharply, feels zane’s grip tighten on his shoulder, and he says, “shut up. you’re not gonna make us feel any worse about what _you_ did than we already do, so don’t even try.”

clouse laughs. “oh, no?”

kai glares. 

“the nindroid,” clouse says abruptly. “can you feel pain? i didn’t know, but then, neither did he. it wasn’t hard to convince him, when i showed him your torn-off hand.” he laughs again. “that was the first time he called me _sir_ — and the last time he really tried to fight back.”

zane’s hand is almost crushing kai’s shoulder. kai moves his shoulder a bit and zane lets go, but kai hears the sound of metal digging into metal a second after. 

“he tried to fight a couple of times after that, but never for very long,” continues clouse softly. “it was almost beautiful, watching the moments when he would realize that anything he did would come to nothing and only hurt him and his _friends_ more.”

none of the ninja can speak.

clouse smiles. “he struck me once, and immediately after _begged_ me not to hurt you. i finished, left, returned the next morning and saw he’d been crying all night. when i told him i’d decided to be merciful, he _thanked_ me. it was... beautiful.”

kai can’t stop himself, and a fireball tears out of his hands and smashes into the wall beside clouse, who just smiles. 

“i don’t know which was better, though. the times he fought back, or the times i’d arrive and he’d be too afraid to speak— too broken to scream.”

lightning crackles. the temperature in the room drops sharply. kai’s fire makes a cloud of steam as it heats up. clouse won’t stop _smiling_. 

“the screaming was one thing,” clouse says. “the begging was another. and the _noises_ he made, the _music_ , when the pain stopped and the pleasure started—“

kai’s vision goes red. 

despite zane’s vow seven days earlier, clouse doesn’t live long enough to suffer the way he made cole suffer. 

kai can’t help but wish they’d made it slower. 

-

the _bounty_ arrives two days later. cole insists on walking from the infirmary to the ship, though his legs are still weak and he collapses midway through. he claws himself back up using garmadon as a support, keeps walking. 

neuro meets him on the shore. he looks exhausted, and cole feels guilty; he’d never even stopped to consider the effects of maintaining the pain blocker on neuro. with a regretful tone, neuro tells him that he isn’t going on the _bounty_ with him, and will not be able to keep the blocker in place. 

cole nods. neuro helps him to the ground, and he’s grateful for it when the blocker dissolves and all the pain that’s been flickering distantly in his awareness crashes over him. the burns on his chest and feet, the whip lashes on his back, the bruises and lacerations and torn skin and broken bones all over his body, the ever-present rubbing in his throat, the horrible stretches and stains from the tendrils—

a strangled scream drags itself out of his throat, grating across his ragged vocal cords, and mercifully, his vision goes dark. 

he comes to in the _bounty_ ’s infirmary, which doesn’t look much better equipped than chen’s but is presumably better than the ferry the other elemental masters will take back to the mainland. he’s lying on a soft bed, upper body propped up on several pillows. all of the pain is there, now, pressing at his mind, warring amongst itself for his attention. he grits his teeth and tries not to cry. he fails. 

the space is small, but wu and garmadon are both standing nearby. they look up when cole lets out a soft whimper. to his credit, wu’s pitying expression lasts only for a second before he grabs something from a nearby table and passes it to cole. it’s a thermos full of what smells like tea.

“it will help,” wu assures him, so cole drinks. it’s hot, familiar, comforting, and seems to have some sort of magical properties because cole can feel the pain recede— still there, but not overwhelming. he sighs. another tear falls. 

wu and garmadon exchange a few words cole doesn’t catch, and garmadon leaves. wu rests a hand on cole’s shoulder, so lightly as to almost be unnoticeable. cole takes a deep breath, ignoring the pain in his chest, and closes his eyes. 

he opens them again when garmadon returns with everyone else in tow. jay pushes past garmadon and almost falls over as he rushes over to the bed. cole’s pretty sure the only thing stopping kai from doing the same is nya’s grip on his arm, making him walk at a normal pace. zane approaches as well; he takes up a spot by cole’s head, eyes flashing as he runs some sort of diagnostic. “your wounds seem... better,” he says to cole. 

“i’ve always said a well-brewed cup of tea can be magical,” wu says, and zane gives a quiet laugh. 

lloyd and misako are there as well. misako stays in the doorway, though she smiles at cole in a relieved sort of way, but lloyd goes to join the group around the bed. he hesitates, then throws his arms around cole. 

it’s gentle— it doesn’t hurt at all. still, cole inhales sharply, and lloyd lets go. “oh, no, i’m sorry, did i hurt you?” he gasps. 

cole shakes his head. his throat still hurts, so he doesn’t try to say anything. instead, he opens his arms in invitation, and lloyd happily rejoins the hug. 

wu’s hand is still on cole’s shoulder. jay scoots over to hug cole as well; kai and nya join in. zane’s hand finds its way into his hair as he, too, joins the hug. 

someone’s crying. it’s probably cole, but for the first time in so long it’s not out of pain but happiness, and he’s ruined and disgusting and doesn’t deserve their love but he _wants_ it, wants it so much it hurts, and then they’re all crying, crying and shaking and smiling and embracing. 

“ _fuck_ ,” says lloyd. “we’re gonna need _so_ much therapy.”

through his tears, cole laughs.


End file.
